Testing battery life for all the monitors was for the parent device only. While some of the dedicated options have a battery in the camera in the event of a power outage, most do not, and they are not intended for use as an all-night option. So while we would support a cordless camera for monitoring baby, due to safety concerns with babies and strangulation hazards, none of the products in our review offer this.

iBaby makes a really confusing range of baby monitors. From cheapest to most expensive this includes the iBaby Monitors M2, M2S, and M2 Plus, iBaby M6, M6T, and M6S, and the new iBaby M7. The M2 series is usually under $100 and is pretty poorly reviewed overall. The M6 series is usually about $125 and is decently reviewed. Finally, the new M7 is brand new and only differs from the M6S in that it has a smell detector and night sky projector that can shine the moon and stars onto the ceiling (our review of the M7 is above). There's truly a lot to love about the iBaby M6S. It looks great, is pretty easy to setup, and has a ton of appealing features. Some highlights are that it uses 1080p high definition video, it senses room temperature and humidity levels, has an air quality sensor (measures the presence of volatile organic compounds or VOCs in the nursery), is dual band wifi compatible (2.4 and 5GHz), and a two-way intercom. It also can record HD videos, remotely pan (rotate) and tilt up/down, and you can setup alerts for motion, sound, and VOCs (from 1 to 4 with 4 being best). So it basically has everything that might be on your list of baby monitor essential features, and we were really excited to set it up. Out of the box, we found it easy to download the app to our smart phone (Android or Apple), connect to the monitor and connect it to wifi, and get things up and running. A couple notes here - first, your wifi password needs to be shorter than 32 characters or the app won't accept it, and second, there is no way to manually set an IP address for the camera. When we used it on our home wifi network, we found that the images were clear and decently fast (low lag), and the night vision was high-quality and not too grainy. We especially liked the pan and tilt features from the app, which allows you to move the camera's view angle around without going into the nursery (and it uses a cool screen-swipe gesture to do it). Once we left our home's wifi connection and tried to connect to the camera from a 4G LTE or a different wifi network, that's when we started to run into problems. It was choppy and laggy, which to be honest is what we expected when attempting to stream 1080p HD video outside of your home network. So we changed the resolution settings on the app (Settings - Display Settings - Resolution) to downgrade it to a lower quality stream; that seemed to help a bit. We also had difficulty connecting to the camera at times, whether we were at home or elsewhere, which was one of the more frustrating things about the iBaby Monitor M6S. The temperature and humidity sensors seemed to work pretty well, and we confirmed their accuracy with a separate thermometer and hygrometer (they were pretty decent in accuracy). For the two-way intercom, the speaker in the camera seemed pretty poor quality so it was hard to hear my voice when attempting to speak to (or sing to) our baby. Finally, we had some issues with alerts coming through to the app as intended. We setup the temperature, humidity, and VOC alerts, and had really intermittent alerts when we tested them out. The temperature and humidity sensors seemed to be reading just fine, they just weren't reliably triggering an alert when they deviated from a range. For example, we set a temperature alert for 80 degrees then blew a hair dryer at the camera; it warmed way up, but the alert wasn't triggered, so that was frustrating. We didn't test the VOC sensor, though one could imagine you could open up a can of paint next to the camera and see if it sends an alert. So overall, we have a decent wifi baby monitor that has some excellent features but also leaves a lot to be desired in the reliability department. Interested? You can check out the iBaby M6S Baby Monitor here.
Security is one reason Stanislav personally uses an RF monitor (like our pick) with his own daughter. He added that even that is not completely secure—“there are absolutely ways to break into a signal with radio frequency,” he said. But, noting that you have to be physically close to the house, and have the motive and ability to do it, he says it’s “a very small risk to your average parent.” In addition to the actual risks of a Wi-Fi monitor, there’s a perception that they’re vulnerable—this suspicious tone comes up often in many conversations with parents about monitors, with statements like “we’ve all heard the horror stories”2 coloring the whole discussion and suggesting, to us, that most people are really put off by the vulnerability.
Bottom Line Fun Wi-Fi option with lots of features that is easy to use and has true to life images we love Really cool camera with lots of uses and great video for simple baby monitoring Budget friendly Wi-Fi camera with nice images, but potential delay of varying length Our favorite dedicated monitor with impressive range that is very easy to use A budget friendly dedicated monitor that gets the job done well without all the fluff
Security is one reason Stanislav personally uses an RF monitor (like our pick) with his own daughter. He added that even that is not completely secure—“there are absolutely ways to break into a signal with radio frequency,” he said. But, noting that you have to be physically close to the house, and have the motive and ability to do it, he says it’s “a very small risk to your average parent.” In addition to the actual risks of a Wi-Fi monitor, there’s a perception that they’re vulnerable—this suspicious tone comes up often in many conversations with parents about monitors, with statements like “we’ve all heard the horror stories”2 coloring the whole discussion and suggesting, to us, that most people are really put off by the vulnerability.
Wireless encryption: This ensures that no one else can tap into your monitor’s “feed” and see what’s going on in your house. WiFi-enabled monitors are great for portability and range, but may be more susceptible to hacking. If you go this route, be sure to secure your home wireless network and keep the monitor’s firmware updated. Otherwise look for digital monitors with a 2.4 GHz FHSS wireless transmission.